With blazing sunshine by day and names like Kraftwerk, Pet Shop Boys, Justice and 2manydjs on the bill by night, Sonar Barcelona’s 20th anniversary festivities were an electronic music lover’s dream gig.

As will be familiar to anyone who’s ever woken up after one hour of bongos-disturbed sleep, to find that the sun on their tent has turned them into some sort of boil-in-the-bag meat product, camping-free festivals can seem like the way to go after a certain age – and Barcelona is an amazing city, offering a beach and bonkers Gaudi architecture galore.

(Picture: Amy Dawson)

Sonar, which his grown from welcoming a relatively tiny number of music industry bods back in 1983 to a record-breaking 121, 000 global revelers in 2013, is split into two. Sonar by day, which took place in a new venue for the first time this year, hosts all sorts of interactive installations, workshops and cutting edge new music showcases. If you’re the kind of person who wants to build your own synthesiser, this is the place to learn how – but likewise if you just want to drink margaritas and dance in the sun, which I will hold my hands up to, that’s also very much on offer.

Sonar by night takes place in a separate venue, a large conference centre on the outskirts of the city. There are four colossal stages, and all but one have open roofs; so you get a nice breeze and can see the sunrise, but the sound is absolutely sharp. It’s not as spectacular as Exit’s Novi Sad fortress or as lovely as the rolling hills and waving flags of Bestival; but it’s a lot easier to race between arenas, so you can catch as many acts as possible.

Kraftwerk 3D show at Sonar 2013 (Picture: SonarPress)

The gigs peaked again and again like cresting waves – Kraftwerk’s 3D show, for which we donned old-school 3D glasses to see the Tour De France hurtling out of the screen; the Pet Shop boys exploding a giant orange glitterbomb; an Ed Banger 10th anniversary showcase which climaxed with Justice sliding the hard, squelchy electro of their Phantom Part II into first The Ronette’s Be My Baby, then Minnie Ripperton’s Les Fleurs.

While there were a few wrap parties on Sunday night, the final goodbye was essentially said by French techno Daddy Laurent Garnier – who still makes the best lost-in-music ‘o face’ around – in his 5am closing set the night before. Just after sunrise he dropped his classic track The Man With The Red Face – surely one of the best dance records ever made, at least when it comes to those featuring a live sax. Stick it on at 10.45am on a rainy Wednesday, and it’ll immediately improve your day – but in a situation like this it provoked, not only mass euphoria, but a spontaneous Mike Skinner-style ‘go low’ and jump up at the drop.

Laurent Garnier at Sonar 2013 (Picture: SonarPress)

Subjectively, the festival wasn’t without its imperfections – including some slightly strange scheduling (2 Door Cinema Club, for example, wouldn’t seem best placed sandwiched between Eats Everything and Richie Hawtin at 1.30am) and a Friday night main stage lineup that was only for the EDM frat boy crowd – with Skrillex, ‘Harlem Shake’ Baauer and Alvin Risk. It also isn’t massively easy to get back to the city center in the early morning from that part of town, with long queues for the shuttle buses and taxis being hard to come by.

(Picture: Amy Dawson)

Definitely one for music obsessives, rather than those looking to soak up a festival atmosphere, Sonar by Night had a very limited food area and no alternative entertainment apart from some dodgems – as I first walked past them I scoffed that I would NEVER be foolish enough to get in one of those things when slightly the worse for wear, then obviously found myself ramming some Bulgarians in the rear (so to speak) at 4am, feeling not a little like a character from Nathan Barley.

All in all, although I started the weekend looking like this:

And it left me feeling a bit more like this:

I would re-visit the festival again in a heartbeat. (Or maybe, a sonar pulse.)